When we understand who the founding generation was, we realize that even Thomas Young was just an American who knew his duty and did it. So did tens of thousands of patriots at every level of the societal order. This is what we just don't understand. The people of the 1770s knew they were obligated to perform their civic duty, and they did so individually and severally. Every man of the day had a subjective knowledge that he was obligated to preserve freedom and protect the unalienable and constitutional rights of the people. Why? Because this would secure his own freedom as well. But what they possessed practically that we do not, is a vested authority, authorized by colonial statute, to be armed, accoutered, trained, organized, and disciplined in a local Militia company. In addition, the citizens understood their power as Electors, and their power as such Electors to create and enact local laws through local Townhall meetings, or through electing Delegates to local Committees that they created by their own political power and authority, to perform whatever functions the people of the communities deemed appropriate. The local citizens instructed their Representatives of their wishes and expected the Representatives to do just that--represent them under threat of ostracism and rebuke in a public venue, with the power ultimately to remove them from office. But most importantly, every male who served in their Militia knew by his own experience that his primary role was to "execute the laws". The men of the late 18th century until at least the 1860s practiced such execution, and were organized locally through subsidiarity to assure that such execution was always in the hands of the People themselves. This is grossly missing today. We need to remember the good past so we are blessed to repeat it. If we don't remember the good past, we will get what is coming to us.